Family-Friendly Landscaping: Advice from a Chelsea Flower Show Designer for a Harmonious Coexistence of Children and Garden
Creating the Perfect Family Garden: A Space for All Ages
Designing a family garden that caters to both children and adults can be a fun and rewarding project. Here are some effective strategies to create a practical, enjoyable, and adaptable space that suits everyone's needs.
Embracing Flexibility
A flexible garden design approach opens up more creative options based on children's interests. Sandpits can later become raised beds, climbing frames can be moved or dismantled, and paddling pools can be folded away. This adaptability ensures the garden continues to serve its purpose as children grow.
Balancing Play and Relaxation
The best family gardens strike a balance between enjoyable sensory and play experiences for children and restful, shaded, and social areas for adults. Raised beds, fruit bushes, and wildflower areas engage children actively with nature, while shaded seating areas and shady retreats like pergolas or tree-covered spots offer adults a place to relax.
Incorporating Sensory Plants
Design the planting with texture, movement, and scent in mind. Hardy, sensory plants like lamb's ears, lavender, rosemary, and fennel can add interest throughout the seasons. Small, layered details that keep the garden engaging year-round can include textures, shapes of leaves, and brightly coloured (non-poisonous) berries.
Promoting Biodiversity
Hedge windows can provide playful peepholes between spaces, while a willow den can be a woven hideaway. A flexible lawn can have sections left unmown for texture and biodiversity. Raised beds, fruit bushes, and wildflower patches can help make the garden more biodiverse.
Prioritizing Comfort and Practicality
To accommodate evolving needs as children grow, flexibility is essential. Including multipurpose furniture outdoors or durable features that support various activities will enhance the garden's adaptability. Structuring the garden into distinct zones (play, social, planting) can help optimize space and usability for different age groups and activities.
Enhancing Enjoyment and Maintenance
Additional practical features to enhance both enjoyment and maintenance include raised beds for easier gardening, plant markers to keep track of plants, and organizing planting supports for healthier growth and aesthetics.
Considering Climate Factors
It's important to consider climate factors for comfort and safety, especially to provide cool shaded zones as temperatures rise, benefiting all family members and pets. Temporary, movable shelters such as play tents and parasols can also provide shade.
Creating a Secluded Play Space
Staggered hedge entries can create the illusion of the garden's end, making the play space feel more secluded. Paths may need to handle scooters, bikes, and muddy boots, and surfaces must be stable, safe, and forgiving.
Thinking Beyond Play
Thinking in terms of playfulness, not just play, can unlock how a garden is imagined. A water bowl can provide the benefits of water in a safe way for young children. A large table can be perfect for family meals or outdoor craft activities. Espaliered fruit trees can be self-fertile and trained along a wall for easy picking and attractive structure.
Robust Design
Family gardens need to be robust and avoid sharp corners and delicate details. A green-roofed garden shed can be a practical spot to store tools, games, and equipment.
In summary, the most effective family garden design balances enjoyable sensory and play experiences for children with restful, shaded, and social areas for adults; it incorporates flexible elements that evolve with children’s growth; uses natural plantings and zones for different activities; and prioritizes climate comfort and practicality.
- A well-designed family garden harmoniously blends sandpits that can ultimately become raised beds, climbing frames which can be moved or dismantled, and unfolded paddling pools, demonstrating the flexibility needed for catering to children as they grow.
- Crafting a family garden requires an equitable combination of areas that spark sensory and interactive experiences for children, such as raised beds and wildflower regions, while simultaneously providing tranquil, shaded, and social spots like pergolas for adults to unwind.
- Cultivating plants with distinct scents, textures, and shapes, such as lamb's ears, lavender, rosemary, and fennel, ensures year-round engagement with nature, and the incorporation of non-poisonous berries adds further visual appeal.
- Enhancing biodiversity within the family garden is achievable through delightfully peephole-providing hedge windows, a cozy willow den, a flexible lawn with sections left unmown, and patches filled with raised beds, fruit bushes, and wildflowers.
